Aside from chick lit, rapidly expanding areas include graphic novels (not all fiction, of course) and African American fiction... In addition, from the Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock, where African American fiction tops the list of subjects where expenditures are rising, to Houston PL, which must do large annual backlist orders to catch up with demand, African American works, particularly fiction, are on the move. A burgeoning segment of that market is street lit, which many of LJ's respondents have begun purchasing aggressively, turning to nontraditional sources for information and ignoring the absence of reviews that for many was initially a stumbling block.

The article explains that this genre's titles show a vivid familiarity with the settings, situations, and relationships in which these urban teens inhabit, providing a validation and reflection of their outer and inner lives that few other teen media outlets consider. Not all titles handle these topics the same, and some titles clearly mean well in the face of imperfect execution of their stories. Other titles are letter-perfect and are celebrated by teens and young adults (and older adults) nationwide for their themes, plots, characters, and/or humor. Teens do discern the varying levels of effectiveness; asking and discussion of likes and dislikes of individual stories and authors help spark the creation of expectations in literature itself for these readers, with the reading of more and more titles developing and individualizing those expectations into further self-knowledge and personal expression.